Manigat says prepared to lead transitional government

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Samuel Maxime

Editor-in-Chief

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (sentinel.ht) – Former first lady Mirlande Manigat on Thursday said she was prepared to lead a new transitional government to avoid what many fear are the long term affects of a spoilt electoral process, street violence and electoral coup d’etat.

The 74 year-old former 2010 presidential candidate was speaking two days following the visit of the U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to Port-au-Prince.

Kerry, in his discourse in Haiti, said the U.S. would not support a transitional government and announced that the electoral process, of which serious problems prompted his visit, would continue.

Manigat said that Kerry spoke solely for the United States and not for the Haitian people who by an overwhelming majority would prefer a transitional government to organize elections.

Protests calling for the nullification of the August 9, 2015 elections have been taking place throughout Haiti and nearly daily. Since Kerry’s visit to the capital, mobilizations in rejection of an “electoral coup d’etat” have intensified.

A well funded and more extremist faction of political parties called the National Front has risen and called for a radical three year transition, as opposed to the 3 month transition proposed by moderates.

Manigat is part of a more moderate opposition coalition of political party leaders and candidates. They are with the majority in calling for nullification of the August 9, 2015 vote. They have taken the lead in calling for a transitional government.

The current President of the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) is Pierre Louis Opont, a man who admittedly took part in electoral fraud during the 2010 general elections as director general of the CEP under Gaillot Dorsinvil.

At the head of a totalitarian regime is a former musician, Michel Martelly. He has been ruling by decree since January without a political agreement and has exercised that power with controversy.

A vote is scheduled to take place on October 25, 2015 but it won’t matter how the day of the elections folds out. Problems ranging from exclusion, favoritism and campaign finance violations have bred mistrust in the system.

Without corrections, which are impossible at this point, every losing candidate would have a reasonable argument to nullify the vote.